POP
Bruce Springsteen
Working on a Dream (Columbia)
****
Bruce Springsteen has written an album that dwells on love and optimism instead of political discontent. The effect is like a superhero looking down on a society safely returned to normality, saying “my work here is done”. Outlaw Pete is a false start, an eight-minute fable that sounds uncannily like I Was Made for Lovin' You by Kiss. Elsewhere, My Lucky Day and Surprise, Surprise are exuberant love songs, and Queen of the Supermarket is about nothing more profound than fancying a checkout girl. The closing ballad, The Last Carnival, alludes to the death last year of E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici, but otherwise Springsteen's joy at a bright future shines through.
DAVID SMYTH

Franz Ferdinand
Tonight (Domino)
***
Franz Ferdinand have one of the most distinctive sounds in pop, which is at once a virtue and a curse. The Scottish four-piece burst upon a faintly jaded world with a fully formed aesthetic based on a simple, propulsive rhythm and big choruses which amounted to marching music for the dance floor. We obeyed orders and danced. By their second LP, Franz Ferdinand were already reduced to repeating the formula. This third LP is an improvement but the niggle remains: decent songs like Ulysses and Twilight Omens have about them an air of déjà entendu. Variations on the theme appear in Send Him Away and What She came For, but it's not enough to banish dark thoughts of a Big Country-style fate.
PETE CLARK

Eagles of Death Metal
Heart On (V2)
**
Queens of the Stone Age leader Josh Homme's hobby band have now reached the third album stage and the joke — hardly requiring the services of a nurse to stitch our sides together in the first instance — is now wearing distinctly thin. Heart On is the same scuzzy mess of under-produced, riff-driven, pubby sleaze and doubtless everyone making it had a whale of a time. Alas, once you've waded through the tuneless amateurism of (I Used to Couldn't Dance) Tight Pants, the gormless Prissy Prancin' and the wearying nudge-nudge of I'm Your Torpedo, good times never felt quite so bad.
JOHN AIZLEWOOD

JAZZ
The Blue Note 7
Mosaic (Blue Note)
***
To mark Blue Note's 70th anniversary, an all-star septet pays great themes associated with this famous label. Dolphin Dance (Herbie Hancock), Criss Cross (Thelonious Monk) and Inner Urge (Joe Henderson) have all become jazz standards, less so Horace Silver's The Outlaw, Duke Pearson's Idle Moments and the title track, by Cedar Walton. The ensembles are artfully revoiced for classy soloists including trumpeter Nicholas Payton, tenorist Ravi Coltrane and guitarist Peter Bernstein. Inevitably it lacks the thrill of discovery, but if it leads listeners to the originals, this album will have achieved its purpose.
JACK MASSARIK

WORLD
Shiva Nova
Secret Chants (ShivaNova)
***
Led by Priti Paintal on piano, Shiva Nova is an Anglo-Indian group bringing together Indian, jazz and Western styles. The predominant flavour on their sixth release comes from the Buddhist culture of the Himalayas. The lengthy title track (to be performed with the Philharmonia on 31 January at the Royal Festival Hall) begins gloriously with sampled Tibetan monks and Indian flute and ends with ecstatic vocals by M Yogeswaram. The best track is the jazzy Dance for Prakash, with saxophone and delicate percussion from RN Prakash, which manages to loosen the earthbound feel.
SIMON BROUGHTON